Willis To Help Cast “Die Hard: Year One”

Appearing at the Television Critics Association press tour this week, director Len Wiseman (“Live Free or Die Hard”) has spoken about the long in the works “Die Hard: Year One” and confirmed we will be seeing both a young Holly Gennero alongside a young John McClane through flashbacks in the film.

The partially 1979-set storyline is said to be an origin story for McClane, looking into his time as a police officer with the NYPD. The film will jump back and forth between past and present, working as a prequel and sequel so as to explore “the 70s has ramifications on present-day Bruce”.

Right now Wiseman is waiting for the script from “The Conjuring” scribes Carey W. Hayes and Chad Hayes to be finished before they commence with filming. He tells Slashfilm:

“‘Die Hard’ is going to be happening fairly soon. No dates. I’ve been asked about dates before and I’m always wrong. The date is when the script is right which is when we all want to go. The script has taken quite a long time. I want it to be right, as everybody does.

The truth is we started prepping ‘Live Free or Die Hard’ when the script was not ready. That process of working on the script as we were shooting the movie is not the funnest thing in the world to do. We pulled it together but nobody wants to go through that again.

I think it’s also more so than any other time, [the script]’s very important. We’ve seen it all. We’ve seen a lot. I think even, say, 10 years ago, I think studios, in general, were a little bit more willing to put movies like that, franchise movies into production with a sense of ‘we’ll continue to work on the script.’ I think that attitude has changed.”

Wiseman also confirmed that Bruce Willis is helping with the casting process. He adds: “There is [a young Holly], I will tell you there is” and “there may very well be” a present day reunion between Willis and actress Bonnie Bedelia who hasn’t appeared in the franchise since the second film. It’s also not confirmed if McClane’s children Lucy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and Jack (Jai Courtney) will appear.